


A Better Fit

by pudgy puk (deumion)



Series: it sounds like a whisper [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Introspection, Pre-Relationship, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 19:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11927547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deumion/pseuds/pudgy%20puk
Summary: "Mayhap it's cruel of me to say it, but any girl foolish enough to take a lordling to bed has no one to blame but herself in the end." -Hierytha





	A Better Fit

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this takes into account none of the SB MCH questline and any relevant developments that may be in there; I have not yet played it because, as I'm sure one can infer from my update schedule, I am not fast. Thank you.

His lordship Stephanivien de Haillenarte had many great and worthy skills, but architecture and civil engineering were not among them. His manufactory was a gem to masters-at-arms, a treasure to marksmen, and his personal crown jewel accomplishment, but at the same time it was a sprawling mess. He added new equipment, repaired old utilities, and reorganized the workshop’s functions strictly on an as-needed basis—and after more than a decade of this, entirely unchecked and unsupervised, Skysteel Manufactory really needed a thorough going-over by an entire gaggle of builders if it was going to be “the future.”

For example: When it became apparent that stored meltwater in buckets and barrels was no longer sufficient, that his projects would require him to pipe in running water from the capital’s waterworks, well, certainly he’d made it happen, and well enough that the pipes didn’t leak or freeze. But many of them were still bare, and outside the walls and ceilings rather than tucked inside, which meant that after dark, after the furnaces and fires were shut down for the night, those pipes got dreadfully cold. And when the very first shift came in, just before dawn, still yawning and stretching—why, naturally, they lit the furnaces before walking down to the carvery for a hearty breakfast and heartier tea, so both the machines and the workshop could get properly hot by the time work was ready to begin. And those exposed, frigid pipes? Naturally, they started sweating, and naturally, that sweat dripped right off and right onto Joye’s face.

It took two or three drops to jolt her from dreams, and one final one for her to remember where she was. Instead of her own room, and her own bed and blankets, she was under some old welding aprons and atop a massive, musty old elezen-sized couch. It used to belong to his lordship’s lady mother, until she declared it too old and worn and unusable and the count at last agreed to remove it from her sight—upon which occasion Rostnsthal declared it was good enough for him and secretly dragged it back into the manufactory, tossing a couple of lumpy pillows and a dropsheet over it as disguise for when the count did his inspections. Since then it had been of great utility to the manufactory, and not only as a place for tired marksmanship instructors to catch forty winks. It had been used as a weight, for bracing against, for cacheing snacks, at least on one occasion for “cacheing” an entire firkin of brandy, and had its cushions used to temporarily pad things heavy, hard, or hot, or for testing his lordship’s most recent inventions, with bullseyes painted on. Joye was certain that the countess’d have a fit if she found out what had happened to it, but his lordship said he preferred to think that this was a guarantee his father had gotten his gil’s worth for the piece. That was what they’d been joking about last night, even, and…

Joye started as behind her, something moved, rustling and crinkling the apron pile. Oh, bother. Slowly, she turned her head, then the rest of her, rolling from her side onto her back with a minimal jostling of herself, or of Stephanivien, beside her and still out cold, it seemed. She sighed. His lordship really shouldn't have.

Not that she blamed him for being tired—he’d had the lion’s share of the hard work late last night, first evaluating the pistol models after she’d tested them on the couch’s cushions (he was testing ways to improve his inventions’ accuracy, and had hit upon a way to spin the ammunition by spiral grooves in the bore—and that worked, but had spawned a new problem, that of the cut grooves being fouled by the aftermath of shooting and becoming useless). And then, after she’d accidentally shot out one of the important joints in the couch frame because she hadn’t thought the shot would penetrate that far… well, of the two of them, he was the only one strong enough to handle that thing’s weight as they did emergency repairs, for Rostnsthal would be as displeased to find his couch unusable the next day as to be woken at the first morning bell to help fix it. So it was just them alone, and after it was done they’d piled the cushions back on, climbed atop it to test that it’d bear their weights again, and to rest a moment, his lordship at least a little punch-drunk from the hour and from exhaustion, and she’d closed her eyes for just five minutes, and apparently, so had he.

Joye yawned, absently fiddling with her pendant resting on her chest. This sort of thing happened quite a bit—though not as often with her. His lordship worked as hard as any of the manufactory’s men, and as long; like the beloved knights-commander who slept in the same barracks with their squires and infantry and broke the same hard bread, he saw nothing beneath his station in getting as filthy and as tired as the rest of them, nor in sharing the rest and repast. She couldn’t count all the times she’d seen him and Celestaux nodding off together at a cleared table, or the times he’d used an already-sleeping Rostnsthal as a pillow or mattress. But she, she was different. And most of why she was different was because she was a she, and a hyur, and still unpromised, and a maidservant in his lordship’s and his lord father’s house, and altogether in a different position than the other commoners recruited to machinistry and marksmanship. So his lordship strove to be sure his generosity towards her never crossed any careless lines, and, more or less, he succeeded. More or less.

A draft struck her legs then, Joye frowning and tugging at the aprons piled on the two of them. He must have felt the chill too, for he stirred in his sleep, shifting heavily from his back to his side, curling in on himself for warmth. Joye tried to suppress a giggle, and mostly failed—he looked rather ridiculous at this angle, goggles and bandana all askew and the shadow he wore on his eyes smeared all over, his head tilted at an awkward angle from the rolled-up apron under his head serving as a “pillow” being too small to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders and one ear half-squashed against it. So handsome, the High House heirs—his lordship obviously had Ishgard’s well-bred maidens beating a path to the manufactory’s door.

Of course, this was why he’d made so firm a practice of treating her differently from the rest of the “lads” in the manufactory, even as he was kind and affectionate to her—he really did have that concern. And as it was the tradition for the lords and bishops to sigh over the poor women prostituting and whelping rather than curtail their own sons’ and nephews’ rutting, it was a good thing he did, even and especially as they both knew they were too smart to fall into that trap. His lordship was too decent and honorable to endanger her reputation, and she plain knew better—and whatever it was that tempted hyur maidens to surrender maidenheads to elezen lordlings, she couldn’t understand it. They were rich, but a mistress would never see that gil. They could not offer the security of marriage, for they’d all be promised off to someone befitting their station if they weren’t already. They could not give hyur women children, or at least it’d be against the natural order if it happened, and either way that offered no joy or comfort there. And so what if they were handsome? Surely there were men less dangerous to go to bed with, a better fit for—

“Oh!” The exclamation was less for volume than sudden surprise—apparently his lordship, even asleep, would tolerate the mounting pain in his neck no further, and had rolled more towards his front, and subsequently wound up throwing his arm over Joye, and pulling himself against her and half atop her. A brief fidget and nasally groan, and he was back to the stillness of sleep again. Joye was still too, but very, very much alert now.

It was not some kind of a romantic position to be in. The aprons were heavy and rough and smelled bad, his lordship’s quite-sweated-in old shirt smelled worse. The air around them was filled with the sounds of stone and metal and fire, not musical by any stretch of the imagination, and the old couch they lay on, while once a darling powder-blue, was now mostly just powder-colored. A little draft still ran over her legs now and again, and to be quite honest, she needed and wanted a few more bells of sleep. And yet…

With just his left arm and shoulder, he came near to covering all her ribcage—out of reflex, she’d tensed up and raised her arms when he rolled over, now that she was relaxing, her hands came over his arm, fingers catching gently in the loose sleeves (his lordship had a penchant for poet’s shirts stuffed unevenly into work gloves, under protective vests and padded aprons, as if his work was as much lyrical as mechanical). They bagged enough that she was sure she could fit them over her legs, let alone her arms. His lordship had apparently had enough presence of mind not to sleep in his gloves; Joye learned this accidentally through her wandering fingertips before directing her gaze at the bare skin she touched: certainly he could comfortably hold both of her hands in one of his. Above her ears, she could hear his quiet, slow breathing; all against her side even to her hip she could feel the motion of it. His lordship, as his lord father so often lamented, was no knight. He didn’t have the build of one—thicker arms, powerful thighs, for and from wielding lance and sword and axe—but he did have the frame. Joye had noticed it before, in passing, that he could (and did) tower when appropriate, that he had the shoulders and the reach, and now she could see how it vexed the count, for his eldest son to have that potential in his blood and bones, if only he applied himself properly.

He snorted in his sleep, the wind of it rustling her messy morning hair—and Joye looked down along the length of her body (just a series of lumps underneath the apron stacks) and wiggled her feet a bit to identify which lump they were in. He stirred as she did so—and his motion made it easy to see her feet were closest to his knees. If she were to curl up herself, she could slot herself against his side or chest and he could curl around her easily, and no one would know she was there. It could be so… Even if his lordship wasn’t a knight, she knew he was no coward and no weakling. He was almost as good a shot as she was, even, and had already shown that—if she wanted—

Well, if she wanted, he would make sure she was safe.

Joye had stayed looking at her toes for several minutes. Not that she could see them, but she could see how the apron-lump moved as she wiggled them, tapped them together idly, and curled and turned them in, like playing at cuteness. Her fingers smoothed over the fabric of his sleeve, of the arm slung over her, repeatedly following the fabric’s grain to the seam and tracing it up and down. She laid back, and she fidgeted, and she thought, and it took her quite some time to realize that the steady rhythm of his breathing had increased in tempo since she first made a note of it, which had to imply that he was awake.

Her feet pressed together and stilled, and her hands slid off his sleeve to the cloth of her own bodice, and slowly, Joye looked up. She was right, his lordship was awake, and with his eyes clear and his brow unfurrowed, he was looking down at her. Apparently, he had been laying still and thinking, too. What about?

She looked at him, he looked at her, but neither of them asked nor answered that question hanging between them. Instead, under his gaze, she closed her eyes, let her head fall to one side, and wiggled into the warmth. And, after a moment, he reached over her to adjust the makeshift apron blanket so there would be no more gaps, then settled into the warmth as she had. And though she kept her eyes tightly shut, she could feel from his breathing that he’d fallen back asleep shortly before she dozed off once again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I like this ship and all the NPCs related to the manufactory, there's a high likelihood I'll write more and, in the event that I do, try out the "collection" thingie. I'll also probably have cause to try it out with some of my Francel fic soon, anyhow.


End file.
